however girls are
treated as children, they will treat their future children when they
grow up the same way

by attempting to
change how children are brought up, this will help solve the problem of
poor parents

reciprocal duty:
exists between parent and child- The parent who pays attention to
helpless infancy can require the same attention when “feebleness of age”
comes upon him.

2. Who/What is the argument
against? - Identify the targets, other authors or systems of thought that
this author is bent on challenging.

Parental Affection / Duty to
Parents

Rousseau - “How can they leave the nursery for the
camp?” 154

Moms

Women in particular either desire their children’s
affection and shower them with gifts or are neglectful of their
parental duties.

Moms should work to expand the understanding of their
children through reason.

reciprocal duty

Education system

Status quo of the relationship
between men and women

3. What is the argument?

Property is the end, and men neglect their
duties and are treated as demigods. Religion is separated from morality, yet
men wonder why the world is filled with oppressors. There must be more
equality in society or morality will never prevail over immorality and
ignorance. In other words, as long as we have a patriarchal gendered society
reason would not prevail and to achieve anything we need reason.

“The conclusion which I wish to draw, is
obvious; make women rational creature, and free citizens, and they will
quickly become good wives, and mothers; that is -- if men do not neglect the
duties of husbands and fathers. “ (187).

“The reciprocal duty between parent and child, may be given in a few words. The parent who pays
proper attention to helpless infancy has the right to require the same
attention when the feebleness of age comes upon him?” 161

- “Why should the minds of children be warped
as they just begin to expand, only to favour the
indolence of parent, who insist on the privilege without being willing to pay
the price fixed by nature?” (164).

- “heaven seems to
command the whole human race. It is your interest to obey me till you can
judge for yourself: and the Almighty Father of all has implanted an affection
in me to serve as a guard to you whilst you reason is unfolding: but when
your mind arrives at maturity, you must only obey me, or rather respect my
opinions, so far as they coincide with the light that is breaking in your own
mind.”163

Page 192: relationship of God and reason

Page 201: Virtue must be nursed by liberty

Thesis of the book? Bottom paragraph of pg. 202

Let women be free → this will change the
position in society women have been placed in and continue to perpetuate -
pg. 203

3a. What does the author
regard as the distinctive about the Modern Age

-Moral cause of angers from mothers towards
their daughters, but how can they be angry if daughters were brought up to
obey parents and husbands. If an “accidental cloud” were to happen then why
overstressed it?

-Women in particular either desire their
children’s affection and shower them with gifts or are neglectful of their
parental duties.

- “...they love their
relatives, because they are beloved by them, and not on account of their
virtues” (165)

- Women are a natural consequence of their
education and station in society (203)

3b. How does the author
address liberty, equality, and fraternity?

“... When they are obliged to submit to
authority blindly, their faculties are weakened, and their tempers rendered
imperious or object”. Wollstonecraft, believes that both boys and girls need
freedom? But what does this freedom include?

- True. for they
become tyrants ; for it is not rational freedom, but a lawless kind of power
resembling the authority exercised by the favourited
of absolute monarchs, which they obtain by devising means” (164)

- “Women have not any inherent rights to claim”
(204)

4. What are the strengths of
the author's argument?

- Wollstonecraft goes on and on describing
women as self-absorbed, lacking reason, and available to
the wants of men at their request. This
type of criticism and her near misogynistic tone regarding
women may have been the type of controversy needed to get people reading.

She makes her argument against both sexes, not
just females.

Appeals to reason to illuminate how both sexes put
women in the position they are in.

5. What are the weaknesses of
the author's argument?

Changing her mind about boarding school. At
first Wollstonecraft fears that girls are first spoiled in the latter. 135.
We’re also not entirely sure how familiar Wollstonecraft is with boys’
boarding schools, since she probably didn’t work in one.

Later she states how children’s thoughts are
fixed with eager anticipation hopes.

Wollstonecraft seems to be going back and forth with
what she wants education to look like.

The idea of wanting public and private education
→ how would this work?